Lanka’s Sovereignty Is Not Unlimited

The buzz word in the political lexicon of the Sinhalese in the past weeks has been ‘Sovereignty’ — Swaireebawaya (in Sinhala). We say Sinhalese because Tamils have ceased to speak on politics for quite sometime. Political sovereignty — as anyone who ventures to discover its precise meaning, will find a bewildering number of definitions. The closest interpretation of our ardent defenders of sovereignty is: The right of a nation to defend its national interests free from external interference.

Right now national sovereignty has been compounded into a heady and explosive mixture with patriotism which manifested itself into a fast-unto-death demonstration last week  at the entrance to the  United Nations Headquarters at Bauddhaloka Mawatha.

Are we sovereign?

This defence of the country’s national sovereignty shorn of the hysteria, political opportunism and deep seated political skulduggery can be appreciated if the doughty defenders of this political concept have not been purblind to the one instance where Sri Lanka’s nose was rubbed in the dust. In 1987, Sri Lanka’s national sovereignty was blatantly violated by our friendly neighbour by violation of our airspace, aerial parippu drops and landing of thousands of Indian troops on our island.
Of course much political sophistry was later deployed to show that this was an act of ‘good neighbourliness’ but the 13th Amendment of the constitution is evidence in black and white of the violation of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and subservience to Indian demands. India is still insisting on implementation of a 13th Amendment plus  and all the kowtowing  the Rajapaksa brothers are engaged in, rushing up to New Delhi  and salaaming Indian leaders and bureaucrats cannot be acts of representatives of a truly independent and sovereign nation.
We are not discussing the validity, merits and demerits of the Indo-Lanka Agreement signed 23 years ago. The importance of the events of 1987 was that it demonstrated Sri Lanka is not a country with unlimited sovereignty. When Sri Lankan writers protested at that time against the violation of the country’s sovereignty, Indian writers were quick to point out that no country in the world had unlimited sovereignty. The United States, Russia, China and other world powers were subject to limited sovereignty on various issues where their interests came into conflict.
Thus, geopolitical realities made our sovereignty subservient not only to New Delhi but also to Tamil Nadu where its celluloid political heroes threatened us with bum boat invasions at the slightest provocation.  Whether, some of or hot-heads learnt lessons from the hard knocks received 23 years ago is hard to say. Perhaps not by many voluble young politicians who were in their jungies at the time of the Indian intervention.

Cock-a-snook at the West

There appear to be some Sri Lankans, particularly among the Rajapaksa adherents that Sri Lanka can cock-a-snook at Western nations and get away because it has the support of China and also the support of some oil rich countries.
‘We are a sovereign country and will not be subject to your conditionalities’, we told the European Union. The European Union was only asking that Sri Lanka implement some conditions which we had agreed to such as removal of the fetters placed on journalists and for greater trade union rights. That call was an affront to President Rajapaksa, who would not permit foreign countries to dictate terms to a ‘sovereign and independent country’. Hundreds of thousands of garment workers lost their jobs and with them about five fold the number in their families, their livelihood. These people can now be assured of their sovereignty but not their basic requirements for life.
We wonder whether some of those ardent defenders of Sri Lankan sovereignty have gone through the implications  of being signatories to international laws and conventions. Even though the UN Charter provides for non interference in the internal affairs of member states, there are provisions under which the UN Security Council could intervene such as with imposition of sanctions on Iran for not complying with Security Council resolutions. We wonder whether some advocates of this unlimited sovereignty would have agreed to sign even the UN Charter which provides powers to the Security Council to intervene under certain circumstances.

Disgrace to Lanka

Last week a disgraceful demonstration outside the UN headquarters in Colombo resulted in the organisation closing its offices  and  its representative being called  back to New York for consultations. Whether Ban Ki Moon had erred in his decisions on Sri Lanka or not is a matter that has to be settled at the highest level of diplomacy and not by street  demonstrations and obstruction of the movements of UN employees to and fro from office. This is an utter disgrace to this country that has won the highest accolades in the world body with the appointment of our diplomats such as Shirley Amerasinghe and Jayantha Dhanapala. Why a country should disgrace itself in such a manner defies reason and common sense.

Staged drama

Wimal Weerawansa, a Cabinet Minister  and the leader of the demonstrators  is on a fast-unto-death demanding that the UN Secretary General cancels his appointment of a three member committee to make some preliminary investigations on accountability of officers of the security forces on alleged war crimes during the final stages  of the war against terrorism. Weerawansa is adopting the same strategy used by the great Mahatma Gandhi to make British imperialists change their decisions. When Gandhi went on a fast-to-death, he did really fast and made all of India tremble in fear because of the consequences that would result  if something untoward happened to him. Will Sri Lanka tremble as the corpulent Weerawansa goes on with his fast? Fortunately, in Sri Lanka, only one person, a LTTE cadre died in such a fast. More important will the Secretary General change his decision?
Weerawansa is not to blame. As a JVPer said last week, this is a drama, produced and directed by President Rajapaksa with Weerawansa as the chief actor. The suave Prof. G.L. Peiris had said that it is in accordance with the prevailing law of the country to have peaceful protests and demonstrations. How nice it would be if undergraduate demonstrations heading towards Temple Trees  are treated with the same indulgence and not with water cannons and tear gas!